Somewhere we are walking together on a beach. We don't talk much. There's no need. I have never known another companion as loving and unconditionally loyal as you. I know that I will stop crying, because my memories will always be full of you. The god that cares for furry animals has charge of you now. I hope that he has a cupboard full of treats, some small stuffed animals that he won't mind if you chew, and that he lets you sleep on his bed. I know I have to let go. It's just hard.

Thank-you to everyone who has reached out, here, in email, and on the phone. It means a lot.

My son is off to Quebec for the Canada-wide science fair. He's taking my laptop, because he runs his robot software off it, and for some reason I can't ever manage to post to my weblog from any other computer. So it might be quiet here until the 22nd.

The vets phoned at 10:15. They put me on the speakerphone in the operating room, and told me that they couldn't do anything for Jazzy. I've got an enormous lump in my throat and I wish so so much that I could have been there to say goodbye. They didn't bring her round from the anaesthetic, and they said it was peaceful. I don't feel peaceful. I want my furry friend. I want to go upstairs and find her waiting for me on my bed. I want her to come and steal my chips. Bark at me in the mornings until I provide milk-bones. Flip her food dish around when she's hungry. Bite visitors.

They are sending me her ashes.

xxxxxxxx's -- I stole the questions from Kirsten's friend Kelsey - but the answers are mine.
HAVE YOU EVER:

(x) smoked a cigarette (mmmmmmm cigarettes. five packs a day mmmmmm)

(x) crashed a friend's car (Miguel's. backed it into a parked car.)

( ) stolen a car

(x) been in love

(x) been dumped (he said "I think you're too immature." some things don't change)

( ) shoplifted

( ) been fired

(x) been in a fist fight

(x) snuck out of your parent's house (um, yeah... let's hope they don't read my blog.)

(x) had feelings for someone who didnt have them back (AND he had to get someone else to tell me so. hmph)

( ) been arrested (but been picked up by cops and taken home, after sneaking out of house - see above)

( ) gone on a blind date

(x) lied to a friend (I was a professional liar. told you what you wanted to hear)

(x) skipped school (every single Monday-morning-8-am class in my university career)

(x) seen someone die

(x) had a crush on one of your internet friends (Oh always.)

(x) been to Canada (live there.)

( ) been to Mexico

(x) been on a plane

( ) purposely set a part of yourself on fire (no but a propane explosion took my eyebrows and all the hair on my arms...)

(x) eaten Sushi (mmmmmm sushi. then cigarettes.)

(x) been skiing (tons when we lived in Lake Louise)

( ) met someone in person from the internet (and there are some I've known for ten years.)

(x) taken painkillers

(x) love someone or miss someone right now

(x) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by

(x) made a snow angel

(x) had a tea party

(x) flown a kite

(x) built a sand castle

(x) gone puddle jumping

(x) played dress up?

(x) jumped into a pile of leaves?

(x) gone sledding

(x) cheated while playing a game

(x) been lonely

(x) fallen asleep at work/school (got kicked out of Film Studies for sleeping through Citizen Kane)

( ) used a fake id (no, but I did drink in bars in Edmonton and Vancouver when I was sixteen and seventeen)

(x) watched the sun set (although not recently, it's given that up)

(x) felt an earthquake (my mother yelled at me - she was downstairs and she thought I was throwing things)

(x) touched a snake (NOT on purpose - I hate snakes)

(x) slept beneath the stars

(x) been tickled (however am no longer ticklish)

(x) been robbed (at gunpoint)

(x) been misunderstood (oh endlessly. because I'm abrupt.)

(x) petted a reindeer/goat (goat.)

(x) won a contest (I won windsurfing lessons in grade nine)

(x) run a red light (and crashed the car I was driving. hmmm. trend?)

( ) been suspended from school (no, but been on academic probation)

(x) been in a car crash (see above)

( ) had braces (no, just have crooked teeth.)

(x) eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night (only a pint?)

(x) danced in the moonlight (at my brother's wedding)

(x) liked the way you look (for about three days in 1985)

(x) witnessed a crime (see above)

(x) questioned your heart (but it has few answers)

(x) been obsessed with post-it notes (not only obsessed. Entranced.)

(x) squished barefoot through the mud

(x) been lost

(x) been to the opposite side of the country (and the top!)

(x) swam in the ocean (swam in the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and fallen in the Arctic Ocean)

(x) felt like dying (but I got over it)

(x) cried yourself to sleep

(x) played cops and robbers

(x) recently coloured with crayons? (yes, with my small visitor at work.)

(x) sung karaoke (at new years)

(x) paid for a meal with only coins (in Europe)

(x) done something you told yourself you wouldn't do (ah, yes.)

(x) made prank phone calls (in grade nine. we called boys and left messages for them to call cool girls.)

(x) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (grape pop. ewww)

(x) caught a snowflake on your tongue

( ) danced in the rain (don't think so, anyway)

(x) written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) been kissed under a mistletoe

(x) watched the sun rise with someone you care about (most notably on the west coast trail

(x) blown bubbles (this was daily at our house when the kids were little)

(x) made a bonfire on the beach (Long Beach.)

(x) gone roller skating (oh, rollerskating. in the arena in Vulcan.)

(x) had a wish come true

(x) worn pearls (my grannie's, she left them to me)

( ) jumped off a bridge

(x) ate dog/cat food (milk bone someone put in my locker in high school)

(x) sang in the shower (always)

(x) had a dream that you married someone else (Prince. Don't laugh.)

(x) glued your hand to something (staircase from a doll's house)

( ) got your tongue stuck to a flag pole

( ) kissed a fish

(x) sat on a roof top

(x) screamed at the top of your lungs

(x) done a one-handed cartwheel (my one gymnastic accomplishment, never did get the backflips)

( ) talked on the phone for more than 6 hours? (hmm. may have come close once or twice.)

(x) stayed up all night (especially when I worked midnights.)

(x) didnt take a shower for a week (again, West Coast Trail)

(x) picked and ate an apple right off the tree (our back yard in Nanaimo)

(x) climbed a tree (lived up them when I was a kid)

( ) had a tree house

(x) are scared to watch scary movies alone

(x) believe in ghosts (maybe)

( ) have more then 30 pairs of shoes (I have three pairs.)

( ) gone streaking

(x) gone doorbell ditching (this is turning into 'sign of a misspent youth)

(x) played chicken

(x) pushed into a pool/hot tub with all your clothes on (well, a bathtub. In residence at University.)

(x) been told you're hot by a complete stranger (a biker guy on the street in Nanaimo. Made my day)

( ) broken a bone (nope. just teeth.)

(x) been easily amused (as with this quiz....)

(x) caught a fish then ate it (yes! last summer)

( ) caught a butterfly

(x) laughed so hard you cried (watching Beavis and Butthead's movie, when he's being cornholio. goes with the easily amused thing, I think)

(x) cried so hard you laughed

( ) cheated on a test

( ) have a Britney Spears CD

(x) French braided someones hair (small girls. I love doing their hair.)

( ) gone skinny dippin in a pool

( ) been threatened to be kicked out of your house (but I fought with my mother and left of my own accord before they could threaten me.)

Jazz is in Yellowknife. The vets have her, and she's having biopsy surgery tomorrow morning at 9:30 am. I spoke to the vet clinic a couple of times today, they are very sweet, and they said she had 'tried' to bite someone but they didn't think she really meant it. She doesn't like the cage they'd like to keep her in, so they've tied her up to a table leg and they say that seems to make her happy. I imagine that what they're saying by that is that when they lock her up she barks incessantly.

I only knew on Friday that she was going on the plane to Yellowknife on Saturday. I didn't sleep much Friday night, I kept waking up to look at her. She starts her night on the bed with me, lying between my feet until we both get too warm like that and she gets off and lies on her blanket, on the floor next to my head. Saturday morning it was a bit windy but I took her for a walk. Her ears were flapping in the wind but she bounced along for a while.

We called the airport at 2 and were told to come right away. Miguel wasn't quite ready and had to scurry around packing. When we got there Miguel just had to check in and they said bring Jazz back at 3:30 so she could get on the plane. We sat outside in the truck for quite a while, she sat on my lap and I stroked her, and we watched the airport staff going about their business.

I'm not ready. I think they're going to call tomorrow and tell me there's nothing they can do for her, and then I'm going to have to decide what to do next. I don't want her to suffer. But she's been my friend for so very long and I can't imagine life without her any more. It's so hard with dogs, because although she knew I was sad, she didn't know why, and she was excited about going with Miguel on the plane, and wouldn't sit still for me to hug her when he said it was time to go. I don't want to know. I want her to come back, I want them to fix her, I want us to be able to snuggle and go for walks and sleep on the couch on Sunday mornings. I've walked so many miles with her, more than I think I could ever count, eleven years of walking all over Alberta, BC, and Nunavut. She's climbed mountains with me, walked through rain forests and run about madly on beaches, chasing seagulls. We even met a bear, once, just outside Lake Louise. (She didn't even bark). She was hit by a gravel truck when she was about three, and got away with just scratches. Joeby misses her. He keeps wanting to go outside to see if she's there.

Ed says that he lit a lantern for Grannie. Thanks Ed, that means a lot.

A million thank-yous to Sarah from Blogger, who rescued my blog from the accidental "delete this blog" that I performed on Sunday........

I don't follow hockey. I'm a terrible Canadian, I know, but I can't be bothered. But at the moment all the men I work with are in a hockey pool, so a lot of the talk around is about hockey. Because they know I'm ignorant, every so often they will pretend to pull me in on their side -- "Right Kate?" and I'll agree to whatever. However, unlike some I have worked with, they see no need to educate me. For which I am grateful.

Sears sent me an email yesterday, saying that the shirt I ordered was ready to be picked up. In downtown Toronto. I wrote back saying "The blue shirt I ordered was delivered already. To my house. In Nunavut."

Drove the snowmobile tonight, for the first time. I think I like driving better than passengering. This weekend I might take Rachel out to West Arm, where there are hills, and go sledding with her. She's been bugging me to go.

I'm at a loose end tonight. It wasn't very busy at work today, just cleaning up files after court, and I feel as if I have energy that could be put to use but I can't think of anything to do. I'm hampered by the knowledge that if I start something tonight, tomorrow is Cubs night and I'll be out, and Wednesday night I'll probably be tired again. So what am I doing? Reading weblogs and my email, and listening to the kids bicker about what to watch on tv.

They've settled on music videos. Gwen Stefani singing "It's My Life". Commenting on whether or not one should wear lipstick when being executed in the electric chair. Consensus is -- not. It's interesting to live with folk who have only been alive and cognizant of their surroundings for the past decade or so. Most recently I have found myself explaining Watergate, ABBA, Liza Minnelli, West Side Story, Tang, Fiddler on the Roof, and hysterectomies. I worry that they will have a whole lot to unlearn when they realize that I am not an expert on US presidential scandals, Scandinavian supergroups, Broadway, powdered drinks, or surgical procedures. But I've found to my chagrin that they only listen to short explanations, and will not sit through anything I research to present to them. A longish explanation is likely to be cut off by non sequiturs. "Is she holding a pig? Yeah, whatever, mom."

Sampling is also problematic. Playing Stevie's Edge of Seventeen the other day while I was doing housework prompted some comments about "I hate that song. Isn't it supposed to be a Destiny's Child song?" No, it is not. It's Stevie Nicks. "Is that a man? Girls aren't called Stevie." Yeah, whatever.

I had to go and look up what ABBA song Madonna was sampling in Hung Up. As in, I knew I knew it and that it was ABBA but the title was buried somewhere in my subconscious.

I called my parents tonight, and mentioned that we were buying a truck. Dad said, "What kind of truck?" I replied, "Uh, it's black." He called me an unflattering name. So, to put the record straight, it's a Dodge Dakota. And yeah, that's as much as I know. Theoretically it has an engine. It seems to drive around, at least. That would indicate engine-possessing. I don't know what kind. It seats about five if you don't mind squishing. We have no seatbelt laws here, so we can squish. There also don't seem to be any laws against hauling people in the back of pickup trucks, so we can probably 'seat' about seventeen if we need to...

Broke down today and hung curtains in the living room. The sun is nice. But it's ALWAYS and ETERNALLY shining in my eyes while I'm trying to watch tv.

I also made a slightly deformed piece of pink paper. And hung Miguel's paintings that he has done since we've been here. And pried all the used candles out of the holders and replaced them with new ones. (A bit of a pointless exercise as it NEVER BLOODY WELL GETS DARK) but oh well. They look better.

I'm told that the summer is the time when family violence is most prevalent here. I'm beginning to think I can see why.

The stone church. Angaatdjuvik uyarak -- nutakat ikipkaqtaa.

I think we may have arranged to buy a truck. Which is very cool as it will make it easier to go camping this summer.

Ed's in the Relay for Life... go give him some money.

And Ed -- please just carry whatever you want. Or just run/walk/limp/follolop. Or carry Delia's sign a bit further. I'm shy.

someone burnt down the old church... sad.

Earlier this week. Caller reports, "someone stole my kalvik." Call meanders on, yeah, we usually leave it in the porch overnight, forgot and left it outside, it was gone this morning. I'm taking it all down, but I'm a bit hazy on what a kalvik is. Kamiks I know, that's boots. So I say, "ok, so someone stole your, what did you say, your kalvik?" And the response is, "that's right, someone stole my good wolverine." I've been wandering around saying that to myself. (ok, and other people.) Stole my good wolverine. I had visions of an angry, toothy little carnivore being subdued and spirited away, scratching and nipping, perhaps stuffed down the front of someone's coat, but clarification came later, when I was explaining it to those on duty -- it was a wolverine pelt, stretched on poles. Its owners were displaying it. Anyway, all's well that ends well, the good wolverine was found. Case closed...

It is WARM!!!! It was 0 degrees Celsius today and there were puddles. I was out without toque, gloves, or snowpants. This weekend I may go for a longer walk. The days are very lengthy, now, it's fully light by 4am and it stays light until 11 at night. I've woken every morning this week at 3:30 and thought, "must get up, it's getting late."

I am still, for anyone who cares, not smoking. Soon it will be three months.

Jazzy's no better, but she's no worse either. Miguel's going to Edmonton the second week in May and he's going to take her with him. That way he can be with her at the vets while she has a biopsy done. Poor sweetie. She's still eating well, and playing with her furby, I just don't want to believe that she's REALLY ill...

this time last year we were in England... the Tate Modern.

I'm still up. That's always the problem with working until midnight, I can't unwind and go to bed immediately I get home. I'm starting to get tired now, though. I'm moving into that stage of things where I think I'm craving things (food, drink; something unspecified) but I'm actually just winding down, I think.

Stevie Nicks has been playing in my head all evening:

Somewhere out in the back of your mind
Comes your real life and the life that you know...

Well lately I've been thinking
That the rooms are all on fire
Every time that you walk in the room

I downloaded it off limewire the other day, and it has set itself comfortably in my Windows Media playlist between Simon and Garfunkel and Sting. I was looking for Bruce Springsteen's I'm on Fire because I'd been quoting the lyrics to Ed, and Stevie popped up in the search. Somehow her lyrics are not stellar, I can't tell you I think she's a fantastic poet, a wordsmith -- it's in how she sings it.

Somehow I ended up guarding this evening. There's a beer dance in town tonight and no-one wanted to work. I had another one of those "How the hell did I get here" moments as I was walking down the hallway to check on folks. We actually had some laughs, tonight, as there were two sober weekend sentence servers and then a drunk got brought in midway through the evening. He was very voluble, and spent some time trying to persuade me to marry him. He talked me into singing him a lullaby, because he said he couldn't go to sleep without music, and once I had sung to him he actually went to sleep. The sober guys just thought all this was hilarious. They were ribbing the drunk guy because he hadn't even made it to the beer dance, got arrested before it started, but he took it pretty good.

It was funny, too, because when they first put him in the lock-up, he poked his head out the little window and said to me, "What side are you on?" I said, "Do I have to pick a side?" He said, "yes." I said, "What side are you on?" This stopped him cold, pretty much killed his line of questioning, as he didn't have an answer for it.

I was thinking about it later. Am I on any side? What sides are there? I used to think I had to pick a side, but somehow the boundaries get blurred. I have no objection at all to taking care of the folks who are staying in cells. I made coffee for them and talked to them. Fed them their dinner. Listened to their fears about their children. Basically acted as if they were at my house. Even pushed the tv over so they could watch the hockey game. I can do the job without being mean or nasty. The other day I answered the phone and the person on the other end was complaining about somebody I know. (She's drunk and she won't leave) I said, "Put her on the phone." Then I said to her, "Hey, it's Kate. You don't really want the police to come down and pick you up, do you?" She said no.

For Ed -- on teaching up North. (or should it be Up Norther? relative to that town you say is officially north. We're north of north.)

three additions to the last post:

1. the man in question is merely 'alleged' to have threatened half the town.

b. my father-in-law sent us a huge bag of jelly bellies (44.00 postage) which we hid in our bedroom and have been snacking on their multi-coloured wonderfulness all day in secret, so sugar overload may contribute to my maudlin mood.

q. Miguel is watching Bob Ross if you don't know what this dude looks like you gotta go see...

I had a third one, but I can't think of it.

Yesterday, at work -- a small girl of about five or six came in with her mother. Her mother was in the interview room, and the small girl was lurking in my office. At first she just grinned at me, but then she spied the foam polar bear on my desk and came to investigate. Then she turned big brown eyes on me and announced "I like to draw." So I pulled out pens and paper, she pulled up a chair, and we drew pictures. We drew ourselves, and puppies, and houses, and she wrote both our names and the name of the support worker who was helping her mother. It tears at my heart to know that the situation at home that brought her mother to us will affect this little person...

Later on a woman I know came in to fill out a criminal record check, as she's a new foster parent. She brought along her foster child, who I recognized. I know her mother, and I know that her mother has been trying to get her life together so that she can keep her daughter. I only hope it's not too late, and the foster care will be temporary, just while my friend finds her feet.

Court starts tomorrow. The circuit only comes about every six weeks or so. We have, in a town of 1300 people, some 100 matters on the docket. (Although one guy is responsible for a whole whack of them because he threatened to kill a lot of people...) All my files are ready, but I'm well aware that each file contains someone's life, their hopes and dreams, as well as the details of "what they did."

You will forgive me for my sentimentality today. Put it down to lack of reading matter. Although, as soon as Dustin gets here to start his new job I'm sure it will be just fine..........

My mom is sending me a book. I am considering B&E at the library if they don't reopen soon. My nice librarian, the one who allowed me to take more than my quota of books, went back to Devon. I miss him. A new librarian is advertised for, but no applicants yet. If anyone reading this feels like a radical move, please let me know. I need books.....